肺癌是烟瘾患者的专利？不，非吸烟者也会得，尤其是女性

本文节选自《经济学人》的一篇文章，介绍了有相关研究发现，女性更容易罹患癌症的相关内容

本文共节选4段，建议大家先自主阅读原文，再学习精读笔记。

文末会总结此次学习写作可以使用的词句，读者也可自己总结。会定期将内容进行总结，做成word分享，希望大家也能坚持学习

Gina Hollenbeck said she did “everything right.” The Tennessee nurse and mother of two avoided cigarettes all her life. She ate organic food. She ran half marathons and played competitive tennis. But in 2015, she developed a persistent cough and rapidly lost weight. She didn’t have a primary-care doctor, so she consulted several specialists. For months, none could identify what was wrong. Finally, she paid out of pocket for chest X-rays and took them to an emergency room, where shewas referred to a pulmonologist who diagnosed her with advanced lung cancer.

avoid cigarettes all her life：避免接触烟类物质，一辈子不吸烟【地道表达】

Tennessee：田纳西州

develop a persistent cough：develop sth 患病，患病还可以表达为suffer from sth，但是两者的区别在于develop有一种发展的意思，是主动的；suffer from a disease虽然也是患病，但是词意更倾向于疾病为主动，而主语被迫罹患该疾病。persistent cough指的是持续性咳嗽，咳嗽不止【同义替换】

rapidly lost weight：体重迅速下降，通常发生在癌症。

primary-care doctor：初级保健医师

identify what was wrong：identify是确认，找出，可以和某种疾病等搭配，identify what was wrong即找出问题出在哪里

pay out of pocket for sth：把口袋里的钱全部花完【词组积累】

be referred to：叫某人去……看病【词组积累】

diagnose sb with a disease：诊断某人为某病【词组积累】

advanced lung cancer：晚期肺癌

Gina Hollenbeck说她每件事都做对了，这个田纳西州的护士，两个孩子的母亲一辈子都没抽过烟，她吃有机食物，她跑半马，打网球。但2015年，她出现了持续性咳嗽和体重迅速下降。她没有初级保健医师，因此她咨询了几个专家。几个月来，没有人可以弄清楚她的疾病。最终，她花光了口袋里的所有钱做了X线，并带到急诊室，找到一个肺病医生，最终被诊断为晚期肺癌。

“I was like, ‘This is a cruel joke,’” says Hollenbeck, who is now 42 and still not in remission. “Everybody kept saying, ‘There’s no way that you could possibly have lung cancer.’” Hollenbeckrepresents a worrying caveat to what is otherwise a great success for the U.S. medical system. Overall lung-cancer rates have fallen significantly in recent decades—but women, who have traditionally smoked less than men and thus developed and died from lung cancer less often, nowaccount for a disproportionately high number of diagnoses.

I was like, ‘This is a cruel joke,’：我说，这是个残忍的玩笑。例如，"She had just split up from Brad Pitt, " he says, "she was like poor Jennifer and I was like 'I'm going to make you so hot'. "“她当时刚刚与布拉德-皮特（BradPitt）分手，”他表示，“她就像个可怜的孩子，而我对她说，‘我将让你性感至极。” 【词组积累】

in remission：缓解。例如A year of chemotherapy put the disease in remission一年的化疗缓解了病情。【词组积累】

There’s no way that sb could possibly do：某人不可能做某事

Sth represents a worrying caveat to what is otherwise a……：尽管……，某事对其来说是一个令人担忧的警告【句式】

fall significantly：大幅下降【搭配】

account for：占据

a disproportionately high number of：一个不成比例的高的数字，可以理解为非常高【搭配】

42岁的Hollenbeck说，“我说，‘这是个残忍的玩笑。’”，她的癌症仍然没有得到缓解。“每个人都在说，‘你不可能得肺癌的。’”尽管，美国的医疗系统是一个巨大的成功，但Hollenbeck的病例是一个令人担忧的警告。总的肺癌率近十年来下降明显——但女性，一向是比男性吸烟少，且罹患和死于肺癌的也少的，如今，也占据了较高的诊断率。

Scientists are beginning to zero in on some clues. Research shows that the type of lung cancer most common among nonsmokers disproportionately affects women, and young women are more likely to have a gene mutation often found in the tumors of nonsmokers. Other hypotheses focus on how cigarettes affect women who do smoke. Jemal says something about female biology could make women more susceptible than men to genetic mutations caused by carcinogens in cigarettes. If so, a higher percentage of women who pick up the habit could develop cancer, relative to men. But that remains a theory requiring deeper investigation.

zero in on：对…集中注意力；专注于；瞄准；对准，即focus on【同义替换】

most common among a group of things：在一类事中最常见的其中一个

a gene mutation：基因突变

hypotheses：hypothesis的复数形式：假说，假设。

susceptible to sth：易受……影响【词组积累】

carcinogen：致癌物，carcino-代表“癌”

pick up the habit：养成这种习惯，pick up 有学会，获得的意思，这里引申为pick up a habit，养成习惯【词组积累】

relative to：相对于……【词组积累】

requiring deeper investigation：需要进一步的调查，deeper，更深一步的，进一步地

科学家们开始关注一些线索。研究表明在非吸烟患者中最常见类型的肺癌，不成比例地影响女性，在非吸烟者的肿瘤中，年轻的女性更可能有基因突变。其他假说则关注香烟是如何影响那些确实吸烟的女性。Jemal说女性的生理使得她们比男人更易受香烟中致癌物引起的基因突变。如果真是如此，相对于男性，更多有吸烟习惯的女性会罹患癌症。但那仍然是一个需要进一步调查的学说。

Without firm answers about the risks women face, doctors, patients and advocates are spreading the word about lung cancer among women and nonsmokers. About 1,400 people have joined a Facebook support group Hollenbeck helped start, and she’s working to push through a federal bill that wouldfurther research into women and lung cancer. “Our society believes that lung cancer is a smoking disease,” she says. But for young women like Hollenbeck, that’s increasingly untrue. She hopes her story teaches women that lung cancer doesn’t discriminate and that they shouldn’t hesitate to get help. “If you feel like something might be wrong,” she says, “always go with that intuition.”

firm answers：确切的答案【搭配】

spread the word about：散布消息，word表示信息；消息a piece of information or news【搭配】

push through a federal bill：推动、促成一项联邦法案，put through有促成，推动，推行某个法案的意思【词组积累】

further research into women and lung cancer：进一步进行女性和肺癌的研究，further research指的是做进一步的研究，into sth表示研究的内容主要是什么。【词组积累】

is a smoking disease：是一个吸烟引起的疾病

hesitate to：犹豫做某事【词组积累】

go with that intuition：跟着那个直觉走，intuition直觉。

女性面临的风险没有确切的答案，医生、病人和拥护者在女性和非吸烟者中散布关于肺癌的消息。大约1400人参加了一个Hollenbeck帮助开始的脸书支持小组，她正致力于推动一项联邦法案，进一步研究女性和肺癌。她说“我们的社会相信肺癌是吸烟引起的。”但是，对于Hollenbeck这样的年轻女性，那越来越不正确了。她希望她的故事告诉告诫女性，肺癌并不歧视性别，而我们也不应该在需要帮助时迟疑，“如果你觉得有些不对了，跟着那个感觉走。”

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总结